Get it done! Figure it out! Pay attention! Calm Down!… ugh!! Life is so busy and stressful and just plain overwhelming sometimes!
What if I told you that there was an easy, fun, and totally accessible way to help you to
- 1) be more productive
- 2) solve problems
- 3) find focus
- 4) relieve anxiety
- 5) and increase your creativity and happiness?
The good news is that there is a way, my friend. It’s the simple task of doodling. Here are five ways that doodling can improve your life.
1. Doodling boosts your creativity and increases productivity.
Doodling engages “default networks” in the brain that would ordinarily go dormant without external stimuli to keep it active. Many successful people doodle or sketch to activate all the parts of their brain when they are working or creating.
Personally, I have found that doodling in a controlled way helps me to think of new visual solutions that I may not have thought of otherwise. For example, I like to give myself limitations when I doodle so that I’m not overwhelmed by too many possibilities at one time. By allowing myself to doodle using “only lines” or “only circles” creates a limited amount of possible solutions. This limitation actually helps me to be MORE creative and productive because it keeps me from getting paralyzed by too many ideas or options, aka: overwhelmed.
2. Doodling helps you to solve problems.
As mentioned above, the act of doodling is thought to stimulate areas of the brain that may help you analyze information differently. Sketching and scribbling can help trigger those lightbulb moments of creativity and insight when you are struggling to find a solution to a problem.
3. Doodling improves your memory and focus.
Scientists have found that people who kept their brain active through doodling while listening to someone read boring lists remembered the information on the lists 29% better than participants who didn’t doodle. Get me a pen and paper! Right??
This is because when you are struggling to learn something new or trying to pay attention to something that is boring, doodling pictures or designs that reflect what you are hearing will help keep you from losing your focus and recall the conversation later.
4. Doodling is calming and relieves anxiety.
Doodling can be used as a form of meditation. The brain has a limited amount of information that it can process simultaneously. To put it another way, you can only think about a certain number of things at a time. When you are struggling with anxiety and trying to clear your mind, [clickToTweet tweet=”Doodling fills your head with a soothing task so that there is less room for stressful thoughts. ” quote=”doodling is one way to fill the space in your head with a simple, soothing, pleasant task so that there is less room for stressful thoughts to creep in. “]
5. Doodling makes you happy.
In a study at Drexel University, Dr. Girija Kaimal, EdD, assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, found that “There is an inherent potential for evoking positive emotions through art-making — and doodling especially. Doodling is something we all have experience with and might re-imagine as a democratizing, skill independent, judgment-free pleasurable activity.” In other words, the act of doodling actually makes you happy!
According to a post on Psychology Today, “We are learning that art expression may actually help individuals reconnect thinking and feeling, thus bridging explicit (narrative) and implicit (sensory) memory. The wonderful thing about doodling is that it is a whole brain activity—spontaneous, at times unconscious, self-soothing, satisfying, exploratory, memory-enhancing, and mindful. In essence, doodling (and drawing and painting and making things in general) can be a self-regulating experience as well as a pleasurable road map of thoughts and ideas.”
Another added benefit of doodling is that it will noticeably improve your drawing skills. Plus, the more you doodle these shapes and designs, you will begin to see shapes all around you and figure out ways to draw objects simply by combining different lines and shapes.
So, my friend, I hope I’ve convinced you that you should be doodling right now! So grab a pen and a piece of paper and try it for yourself.
And if you need some inspiration to get you started, I’ve created a workbook with doodling examples and oodles of doodle resources for you to download and practice on. Click here to get your FREE workbook.
